Author: Anne Lee

GAMEboys: Finally, some calendar eye candy that’s right up my alley

I never imagined I’d be the kind of person to buy a sexy calendar, but after seeing this 2014 GAMEboys calendar by Jak, I might just have to rethink that…

If you ever wanted to see your favorite male video game characters in, shall we say, a new light, then this calendar might be for you, too! While “sexy fantasy ladies” is practically a whole calendar genre of its own, it’s definitely a breath of fresh air to see someone give male characters similar treatment for once! Here’s a teaser image of what characters are included: 
See any of your favorites? I know I do! I’m particularly interested in seeing how the male wanderer from Journey is interpreted and, believe it or not, Pyramid Head from Silent Hill! Let’s get a close-up of the wanderer, shall we… 
My goodness! While I don’t know if I have the guts to order a physical calendar for my office, I definitely plan on at least shelling out $10 for a digital copy so I can discreetly hide each month’s hunk on my desktop. If you’re a big fan of Jak’s art style, she’s offering special editions of the calendar in limited supply. Buy one of these puppies, and you’ll be treated to a sketch of any character of your choosing! 
Now, excuse me while I go crank up the AC! It’s getting hot in here! 

Anne in Japan 2013: Steins; Gate Café in Den Den Town feat. Coaster Giveaway!

Anyone with even a passing interest in Japan has probably heard of maid cafés, but did you know they also have butler cafés? I’ve summoned the courage to investigate a maid café once before, and ever since I learned that butler cafés also existed, I knew I had to check one out someday. Unfortunately, Osaka doesn’t appear to have any permanent butler cafés (I’m told they sometimes do
“pop up” butler cafés at events and such), so I decided to settle on a cosplay café that featured both male and female staff.

When we actually arrived at the café, however, I was mildly disappointed to find that even the staff cosplaying male characters were women! In fact, looking back at the “members” page of the website, it’s likely that all of the staff are actually women. Whoops!

2.5D Dimensions Café Afiilia Collaborations… Quite a mouthful!

Upon arriving, my cohorts and I were surprised to see that the café was all decked out with Steins;Gate images… Turns out the café was in the middle of a Steins;Gate collaboration event running from April August. If it hasn’t become glaringly obvious, I really didn’t do my research before choosing this café as a destination. See, I actually know next to nothing about the Steins;Gate game or anime!

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I must admit, it’s rather embarrassing going to a cosplay café in the first place, but that embarrassment is multiplied infinitely when you don’t even know the characters the staff are cosplaying as!

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Mayuri, the gal in the center, and Kurisu, the one to her right, were both there during the hour we spent at the café, as was a Faris cosplayer (not pictured). Yes, I had to look up each and every one of those names and yes, that’s a Itaru cosplayer on the right. You had to pay extra if you wanted to take photos of them, but I mistakenly thought that also meant you weren’t supposed to take pictures of the café itself, so all of the following images were taken with my phone. Sorry about that!

After explaining the surprisingly complicated rules of the café (you had to pay by the hour just to be there, and were required to order at least one drink), the Faris cosplayer handed us each a bell and lead us upstairs to the seating area. Of course, literally everything was decked out with Steins;Gate images. The bell was used to summon staff, both when you wanted to order or just wanted to chat. I accidentally rang one of the bells after we ordered and we were treated to a fairly lengthy and rather awkward conversation with the Mayuri cosplayer.

The menu cover

The Steins;Gate portion of the menu consisted of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic character-inspired drinks and a number of whacky overpriced food items (some of which are in the staff photo above), but my posse and I decided to stick with just drinks. Knowing nothing about the characters themselves, I ordered the alcoholic Rintarou drink in the top left corner because I was intrigued by the fact that it contained root beer (root beer is notoriously unpopular in Japan). It was pretty good! I would’ve liked to try more, but the drinks were rather expensive, so for the sake of my wallet I decided to save my pennies for the retro game shops. 
We received a random Steins;Gate coaster for each drink ordered. Apparently they’re only available at Steins;Gate cafés! And guess what? I’ve decided to give one of them away! 
Steins;Gate fan or not, comment on this post by Saturday, July 27th at 9 pm EST for your chance to win this adorable Faris coaster! And, if you share a link to this post on Facebook or Twitter and leave a link to it in the comments, you’ll get a second entry! I’ll select one random winner on Sunday the 28th. Good luck! 

I was rather proud of my sneaky photography skills here – you can see one of the cosplayers chatting with a patron in the background (fun fact: aside from myself and my friend, everyone else in the café was male).

If you spend over 3,000 yen (approximately $30), you’ll receive a special character sticker. Unfortunately, the quality of the sticker itself isn’t all that great… but it’s cute, none the less!

All in all, the café was a lot of fun! Many thanks to my friend Saori for suggesting we check it out! Now I feel obligated to learn more about Steins;Gate…

Note: The Steins;Gate game is getting an official English release courtesy of JAST USA!

Nobuo Uematsu wrote a picture ebook, and it’s coming out in English

It may sound cliché, what with the many Final Fantasy games being highly regarded for their soundtracks by nearly everyone in the gaming community, but I definitely count Nobuo Uematsu as one of my very favorite composers, regardless of genre. Though he hasn’t been composing nearly as many game soundtracks in the past few years as he did in his Final Fantasy heyday, I still like to keep an eye out for his latest projects. As such, I was pleasantly surprised when I heard the news that he would be publishing a picture ebook, and in English, no less!

This is definitely a guy I’d like to meet someday!

As it turns out, the recently-founded jack-of-all-trades localization company acttil (stands for “acceptance,” “creativity,” “teamwork,” “trust,” “innovation,” and “love”) will be publishing Uematsu’s ebook, titled Blik-0 1946 on iOS devices next month for $9.99. The entire picture ebook was written by the man himself, and the iOS version will include three musical tracks to give the while experience that real Uematsu feel (the upcoming Kindle release will not include the songs). The illustrations are by Uematsu’s colleague Hiroki Ogawa.

Even robots love to read! 
The story is about a robot built to feel human emotions that tries to make sense of the world around him. While the premise doesn’t sound particularly revolutionary, I really like what Uematsu has to say about the book: “I wanted readers to recognize the happiness you can find in everyday life, which you often ignore because they are too close to you, and the importance of kindness and respect to others.” Sounds like a heartwarming story that should be a pleasure to read! I can’t wait to hear the tracks he composed to accompany it.

If you want to stay updated on Blik-0 1946, you can do so by heading over to its Facebook page.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf QR Code Extravaganza Part 4

Now that Animal Crossing: New Leaf is finally out worldwide and most folks have probably unlocked the QR reader function by now, I’d say it’s high time for another QR Code Extravaganza post! As always, this is by no means an exhaustive list, but rather me highlighting some of the designs that have caught my eye recently. And let me tell you, there are plenty…

Let me tell you, that is one fine tush! I’m glad Tumblr user bhakri filled this gaping hole in Animal Crossing: New Leaf QR codes. Now, to decide where to put the booty…

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Here’s a great set of QR codes for all the Revolutionary Girl Utena fans out there. I love how it comes with a dress version of Utena’s jacket and two different shirt variations. And Anthy’s dress is gorgeous! Click the source in the caption for the full QR codes!

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I have a few Japanese QR code blogs that I check regularly, and the Hiyoko’s My Design Blog is definitely one of my favorites. The above yukatas are part of her summer collection, and I just think they’re adorable! I can’t wait to have my character wear one during to a festival this summer.

Hiyoko has also written a few My Design tutorials, which I highly recommend checking out if you’re having a hard time making your own designs. I particularly like this menu sign one… I might even try my hand at it, myself! Don’t be intimidated by the fact that it’s in Japanese – the diagrams make it easy to follow along.

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I recently stumbled upon Pixiv illustrator Meyu‘s work, and not only am I completely enamored with her illustration work, but her QR codes, as well! She mostly does patterns, and though I don’t normally use wall/furniture patterns, I think I’ll have to go out of my way to find a use for these. They’re just too cute!

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And here’s her second batch of equally-adorable patterns. I think they would look great in a café-themed room!

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Madam Luna’s leather harness is a fun “shirt” design for the slightly more adventurous! I’d love too see a screenshot of someone wearing this outfit in a room plastered with the “butts” design I shared above. Maybe I should take it upon myself…

 

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After seeing this, I realized that I haven’t found very many matching outfit sets, but I think it’s great idea! I’d love to see more outfit sets with different themes in the future.

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And finally, it wouldn’t be a Chic Pixel QR code roundup without a video game QR code, now would it? I’m so glad someone made the shirt the wanderer wears in the The Shadow of the Colossus!

For more Animal Crossing: New Leaf QR codes, be sure to check out parts one, two, and three of thia series!

 

Anne in Japan 2013: Arcades and Gatchapon

One thing I adore about Japan is the fact that, unlike the United States and Australia (and many other countries, I assume), it still has a very active arcade scene. Every large city, and even many of the smaller ones, have at least one or two arcades equipped with all the latest machines, ranging from titles westerners might know of such as Time Crisis to more obscure Japan-only interactive card strategy games, rhythm games, and crazy immersive Gundam games that look like something taken straight out of a sci-fi film.* While the rest of the world seems content to game at home, I was happy to see that even in 2013, the arcade business still appears to be booming in Osaka. The Taito Game Station in Nipponbashi above, for example, has multiple floors, each dedicated to a different genre of game, making it easy to find your favorites.

My absolute favorite arcade game!

As such, I made sure to hit up as many arcades as possible during my two weeks in Japan! Of course, the first thing I did was make a beeline for my favorite arcade machine: Pop’n Music. The series has gone through quite a few iterations, but all of the machines I saw during my stay were of the Sunny Park variety, which is the most recent machine in the series, having been launched in 2012. I don’t have time to discuss how the game plays at length here, but if you’re interested in learning more, check out the beginning of this post.

Card on left is from Pop’n Music Sunny Park, cards on right are from a strategy
card game called Sengoku Taisen (grabbed for free from the discard pile)

Some of the Sunny Park machines actually had a card slot at the bottom, which meant you could select the option to play one song and get a random character card for 100 yen (approximately $1) instead of the usual 4 songs for 100 yen. I decided to try my luck at getting a cute card, and I wasn’t disappointed! Well, all of the character designs in Pop’n Music are drop-dead adorable, so it wasn’t much of a gamble…

My husband and I also spotted this Rhythm Heaven machine, which, from what I gather, features the same rhythm games as the GBA title by the same name. The only difference here is that the whole package is bigger and louder, and there’s an option for a two-player mode.

one of Amane Nishiki’s victory poses from BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma

I don’t mention BlazBlue all that often on this blog, but I’m what I’d call an “advanced casual fan.” Okay, that doesn’t mean much of anything, but though I like the look of the games and enjoy watching skilled fighters play, I’ve never been compelled to learn how to play it outside of some lighthearted button-mashing. But, when I heard a cross-dressing male character by the name of Amane was going to be in Chrono Phantasma, the latest game in the series, I just had to see him in action in the arcade. Luckily, the arcade version has a cheater’s mode that enables you to mash buttons and pull off all kinds of neat combos that shouldn’t normally be possible, so my husband and I were able to make it all the way to the end of arcade mode with only one credit. I’m definitely going to pick up a copy of Chrono Phantasma when it comes to PS3 – Amane is just too fabulous!

Though not directly related to arcades (though often found at or around them), toy capsule machines, or gatchapon, are another favorite way for me to spend a few of my extra coins in Japan. Many shopping centers have walls of different machines filled with everything from Pretty Cure toys to Alien figurines!

I grabbed a few of these Animal Crossing: New Leaf snow globes as souvenirs – they were quite the hit.

On hindsight, I probably should’ve grabbed one of these adorable Pikachu toys. I love the one wrapping a leaf around his head on the left!

Yes, Funghi really is as popular in Japan as the various campaigns and merchandise lead one to believe. I was amazed to hear that even my host mother knew who Funghi (aka Nameko) was! The machine above is related to the toy gatchapon, but instead of spitting out a capsule, it distributes a sticker sheet out of a slot for the fine price of 100 yen. I couldn’t pass it up!

Of course, we couldn’t pass up a Rilakkuma sticker sheet, as well. Please excuse the blurry photo, but it’s the only one I got of the machine in action!

Here are the fruits of our labor! The Rilakkuma and Funghi sticker sheets were quite extensive, but unfortunately the Hunter X Hunter one pales in comparison. I could barely stop myself from trying to get all the different sheets!

Now, these aren’t exactly gatchapon either, but when you buy one of these special boxed figurines (generally sold at hobby stores and in the candy isle at grocery stores), you have no idea which figure will be inside. There’s something fun about the excitement of opening a toy and not knowing what you’re going to get, but it’s always disappointing when you get one you don’t really like! Luckily, these Monster Hunter Felynes are all kinds of adorable.

The shop that was selling the boxed Felyne figurines was having a promotion where you’d get one free sticker for every Felyne product purchased!

Finally, let me relate a fun arcade experience from my last day in Japan: in an attempt to kill some time and get rid of our extra 100 yen coins, my husband and I headed to a local arcade to try our hand at the crane games. Now, let it be known that I’ve never won anything from a crane game. This time, I was trying for the particular Funghi plush pictured above… the hand of the crane plummeted downwards towards the toy, barely scraping the one I was aiming for. Suddenly, a voice on a loudspeaker exclaimed (in Japanese, of course), “So close!!”

It turns out the arcade had a woman going around helping customers while chattering loudly about their successes into her microphone as a sort of promotional thing. She asked which one I was aiming for and promptly opened up the machine to put it in such an easy to reach spot that I’d have to be totally inept not to get it on my next try. Well, knowing me, that’d be possible… but as you can see from the picture above, I got it!

While I was never expecting to get anything from the crane machines, especially on my last day, it was a sweet gesture and a pleasant surprise. Have you had any memorable arcade experiences in Japan or your home country?

*technically Kidō Senshi Gundam: Senjō no Kizuna is available outside Japan, as it has been made available in a couple of Asian countries, but it was never brought over to the US

Anne in Japan 2013: Vacation Recap

Two weeks sure flies by when you’re having fun! As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been off enjoying the wonderful land of Japan, where my days were filled with (mostly) eating and shopping. But I did manage to sneak in a couple of other activities, too! Thanks to all who followed my adventures on Twitter and Instagram, and I’m very sorry I wasn’t able to upload at least a post or two while I was away. Alas, the internet did not cooperate! But now that I’m back, I have all the resources I need to give many photo-filled accounts of my adventures… starting with this post!

My plan of attack is to publish a series of themed posts that will likely consist mostly of a few places I visited and items I purchased (you can expect a full Pokémon Center Osaka report, for example), but I wanted to start by doing a brief overview featuring a few of my favorite events and photos from the trip!

Waiting for the JR train to take us to Yasu after a long flight. Sure, it’s not the 24+ hour trip that was required to get to Japan back when I lived in the US, but it’s still tiring! The flight from Brisbane is nine hours, but luckily there’s only a one hour time difference. 

We had a relaxing first day seeing the sights in Yasu. This is a lovely cafe that looks right out onto Lake Biwa, Japan’s largest lake.

My host family’s new house is surrounded by beautiful rice and barley fields!

Japanese signs are always so fun. I don’t think you need to understand Japanese to get the meaning of this one!

First of many candy hauls. Check out the Funghi and Animal Crossing: New Leaf gummies! I was disappointed by the Kit Kat selection, but still managed to find a few interesting flavors. The yellow bag pictured is passionfruit “otona no amasa” Kit Kats. I’ll be sure to write full reports on all of these candies (and those not pictured) over the next few weeks.

I never thought I’d say this, but I actually went to a live-action Doki Doki! Pretty Cure show! Pretty Cure is a long-running series of magical girl shows for young viewers (think Sailor Moon, but for a slightly younger audience), and Doki Doki! Pretty Cure is the season currently airing in Japan. I wouldn’t say I’m really much of a fan, since I’ve never even watched the show, but as a massive Sailor Moon buff, I thought it would be a waste not to go see this local show where the performers act along to pre-recorded audio while wearing some ridiculously creepy masks that make them look like living anime characters. I even recorded some video!

Yep… creepy, but still fun!

I had to take a picture of myself in front of the famous Glico man when we got to Osaka. 
Shaun putting his Einhander skills to the test at a retro game shop in Den Den Town. 
Of course, seeing a Takarazuka Revue show was at the top of my list for this trip. I wasn’t initially excited to see yet another rendition of Romeo and Juliet, but I actually quite enjoyed it! 

It goes without saying that we ate lots of delicious food! I’m a big fan of grilled mackerel. 

Went to the Kyoto International Manga Museum to meet up with some ladies I met at a conference in Melbourne. Also got to see this amazing Katsuya Terada exhibit, including this piece that was drawn specially for the museum!

The big event of the trip was my host sister’s wedding. I’m so very happy for her! The ceremony was lovely. For a moment Shaun and I wished we did an all-out wedding like theirs, but it was a fleeting thought! I’m happy just to attend someone else’s.

I also met my Twitter pal @Zolbrod, who you may remember penned a great write-up of his Hello Kitty donut experience for me back in April. It was great to chat over lunch and play this whacky rhythm game together at the local arcade! It even had some Sonic songs.

What’s your guess for what this sign is trying to convey? 

And of course, Japanese signs still can’t manage to use anything resembling proper English. Are you even trying, Japan?! (let’s not forget the “duck meal tea“…)

Well, there’s definitely more to cover, but I’ll stop here before I overwhelm you all with too many asinine photos. I’m sad to be back in Australia, but I have high hopes that I will get back to Japan in the next year or two! In the meantime, I have plenty of games and manga to keep me busy…

The 2013 Adventures of Anne in Japan Starts Now!

If all goes according to plan, by the time this post goes live, I’ll be soaring over the Pacific Ocean! My destination? Japan, of course!

Since this is my first time back to my home-away-from-home in four years and I’ll be attending my host sister’s wedding while I’m there, this trip is a rather big event for me. You know, I always refer to the family I stayed with when I lived in Japan for a year as my “host family,” but more accurately, they’re my Japanese family – we may not be blood related, but they hold a very dear place in my heart, and not only did they make the trek down to Australia for my wedding, but we have kept in touch over these past four years, which I think says a lot! I consider myself very lucky to be able to call them my second family.

Host mom helping me put on a yukata

But enough of that! What else is on tap for my trip? Well, lots of shopping and eating and visiting all of my favorite places, of course! Here are just a few things I’m particularly looking forward to (all photos from my last trip, 08-09)…

A necessary pilgrimage for any fan! 
Awesome signage
My favorite local bar
Crazy tie-in merchandise and campaigns

Weird advertisements…
And, of course, good eats

Unfortunately, I haven’t planned any additional posts for while I’m away, but I’ll be posting pictures of our travels in real-time. If you want to stay updated, be sure follow me on Twitter and/or Instagram! I’ll be posting all pictures to Instagram for archive purposes, but everything will be cross-posted to both.

Finally, I hope to do a few round-up post throughout my trip of particularly noteworthy events, which will consist of photos taken from my Instagram feed and some additional commentary. Of course, I’ll also write up much more in-depth posts when I get back at the end of the month, so please look forward to them!